Pascal65 beta – an IDE and Pascal compiler that run directly on the MEGA 65 | Hacker News Reader

Pascal65 beta – an IDE and Pascal compiler that run directly on the MEGA 65

pascal65.org

25 pointsamichail16 comments

The MEGA 65 is a recently developed computer that is based on the Commodore 65 prototypes but with some enhancements added.

So Turbo Pascal for the Commodore 64?

Turbo Pascal would have some issues fitting into 64 KB, even the original CP/M version used a bit more.

The first 8 bit machine I saw with CP/M was the Spectrum +3A, with 128 KB.

ISO Pascal for the BBC Micro uses 2 16KB ROMs and runs on 32KB of RAM.

These ROMs include a runtime, an editor (4KB with regex search), and a compiler.

Yeah, but using ROMs is cheating, kind of.

Also ISO Pascal wasn't that useful without extensions, which is what the famous Brian Kerningham rant was about, while ignoring that already back then C had quite a few extensions outside UNIX.

Yeah, but using ROMs is cheating, kind of.

How, exactly?

Because it isn't taking RAM for its own use.

Nonsensical answer. I can load my pascal from a floppy into RAM, or I can run from ROM the same way. What does 'own use' even mean here.

Execute from ROM was a thing.

Actually, this was the first Pascal faithful to the standard that ran on a diskless machine.

It was really quite a feat.

Not sure what you're talking about. I sure ran Turbo Pascal in 64k on CP/M (TRS-80 4P & Montezuma CP/M and Ampro Littleboard).

Well, I have the experience of typing in a Pascal interpreter into a ZX Spectrum, in machine code, without leaving much space left, and it wasn't a fully ISO compliant.

Also I only experienced CP/M with 128 KB, and when I used Turbo Pascal 3.0, it was already on MS-DOS 3.3, with 512 KB.

So I don't have any recollection of it working within the limits of 64 KB.

I see. "I don't have any recollection..." means "it never happened". Got it.

Back in the 1980's we had access to information we had, nothing more, nothing else.

So yeah, in what concerns the experience my brain was able to collect from what I had available to me, in a small Portuguese town in the 1980's, with local library for information, and typical pirated software on street baazars, I have non recollection.

Maybe if I now bothered to search Internet archives, I might find an alternative past, that I haven't lived through.

"I make authoritative statements based on complete misinformation and when called out on it I don't say 'maybe I was wrong' or actually do some research, I blame poverty in Portugal and try and make other people the bad guy". Got it.

Very interesting project! I read the project description and status, and I would maybe call it a pre alpha, not beta at this stage?

Anyway, good luck to the creator. I hope you find people interested in contributing :-)

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